Three Tips to Spice up Your Virtual Tours

Real estate virtual tours have come a long way—from a cool and innovative feature for a select few listings, to a routine and almost expected part of any property marketing. Whether you’re a real estate agent looking to draw more attention to your listings, or a virtual tour provider looking for ways to provide your clients with better value, you need to add a little extra to your virtual tours to help them stand out.

These tips will help you create virtual tours for real estate and business properties that will engage your viewers and put the “wow” factor back in these powerful marketing tools.

Use more picturesIt seems like a simple solution, but adding more pictures with higher quality to your virtual tours can really help them stand out. If you don’t already, use a digital camera to take pictures of your properties instead of a cell phone, and set the resolution high. Take a lot more pictures than you’ll use, and choose the best shots to include in the virtual tour.

In addition, include a greater number of photos in your virtual tour. Don’t forget to use images of the property around the house or building, as well as the surrounding community and cityscapes where appropriate.

Create a video virtual tourVideo virtual tours have been growing in popularity over the past few years. Filming a video tour of the property lets you convey the flow of a home as well as the look and feel, and helps to highlight the visual appeal of the best selling points.

Walk-through video tours can be accompanied with narration to offer more detail for prospective buyers. You may even consider using a rolling tripod to film smooth, seamless video of your properties.

Include an interactive floor planA floor plan is a great way to show prospective buyers exactly what they can expect from a property. Interactive floor plans, such as those you can create with RTV software, allow viewers to click on a room or area, and jump directly to the relevant photos or video in the virtual tour.

You can also include a “floor plan” of the community by placing mash-up maps in your virtual tours, which show landmarks and detailed information about the area surrounding the property. Most MLS (Multiple Listing Service) suites will generate map mash-ups that can be included in virtual tours. You can also create custom maps that show information such as schools, shopping centers, restaurants, and recreation facilities using Google Maps or the “Find a Neighborhood” feature on REALTOR.com.